More on Intelligence and Social Media: Birds Versus Humans

May 10, 2024

This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.

I have zero clue if the two stories about which I will write a short essay are accurate. I don’t care because the two news items are in delicious tension. Do you feel the frisson? The first story is “Parrots in Captivity Seem to Enjoy Video-Chatting with Their Friends on Messenger.” The core of the story strikes me as:

A new (very small) study led by researchers at the University of Glasgow and Northeastern University compared parrots’ responses when given the option to video chat with other birds via Meta’s Messenger versus watching pre-recorded videos. And it seems they’ve got a preference for real-time conversations.

Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Is your security a type of deep fake?

Let me make this somewhat over-burdened sentence more direct. Birds like to talk to other birds, live, and in real time. The bird is not keen on the type of video humans gobble up.

Now the second story. It has the click–licious headline “Gen Z Mostly Doesn’t Care If Influencers Are Actual Humans, New Study Shows.” The main idea of this “real” news story is, in my opinion:

The report [from a Sprout Social report] notes that 46 percent of Gen Z respondents, specifically, said they would be more interested in a brand that worked with an influencer generated with AI.

The idea is that humans are okay with fake video which aims to influence them through fake humans.

My atrophied dinobaby brain interprets the information in each cited article this way: Birds prefer to interact with real birds. Humans are okay with fake humans. I will have to recalibrate my understanding of the bird brain.

Let’s assume both write ups are chock full of statistically-valid data. The assorted data processes conformed to the requirements of Statistics 101. The researchers suggest humans are okay with fake data. Birds, specifically parrots, prefer the real doo-dah.

Observations:

Humans may not be able to differentiate real from fake. When presented with fakes, humans may prefer the bogus.
I may need to reassess the meaning of the phrase “bird brain.”
Researchers demonstrate the results of years of study in these findings.

Net net: The chills I referenced in the first paragraph of this essay I now recognize as fear.

Stephen E Arnold, May 10, 2024

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, News, Video

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.